A Citadel quant developer joined Kalshi and declared himself very excited
As we reported last week, some quants appear to be earning $1m+ placing trades on Kalshi and everyone wants to hire them. But what if you're a quant working for Kalshi itself? Then you might have to tolerate a salary of $150k+, plus equity. This is also exciting, given that the prediction markets firm is contemplating an IPO in late 2027 or 2028.
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Chao Peng, a New York based quantitative developer who's spent the past six years at hedge fund Citadel has joined Kalshi and has declared himself "excited" about the fact on LinkedIn. Nearly 550 people have liked his post. Many of them also seem to work for Citadel, or in financial services. Presumably they would be excited to join Kalshi too.
It's not just the fact that Kalshi offers an opportunity to gain stock in what might be next year's big IPO (which Peng doesn't actually mention), but that Kalshi is still new. It was launched in 2021, whereas Citadel has been about since 1990. Kalshi is so new that, "Most of what makes those markets work is still being built, and now I get to build it," says Peng. Kalshi only launched the ability to trades perpetual future contracts on the platform in late May, for example. Perp trading crossed a billion in volume within a week of being launched.
If Peng feels excited about working for Kalshi, other financial services quants will probably feel similar. Peng has spent his entire career working on trading platforms, first at Beacon and then at Citadel and has a Masters in Financial Engineering from Baruch.
Kalshi is upping its game. In May it hired Sudhir Jain, a former derivatives regulator and JPMorgan executive director. It's just launched "Kalshi pro" for people "who want to trade many markets at once with speed and precision." It clearly has plans. Quant developers may want to pay attention.
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